We will face opponents all our lives. Some will come with the faces of our family; others will present themselves as co-workers or perfect strangers. Some of our opponents are our own internal challenges and struggles. Just as with an athlete, our opponents want to bring harm to us in some way, shape, or form.
When an athlete faces his opponent on the field, he faces an opponent who wants him to lose, to suffer failure, to get hurt. He wants to bring shame on his name. He wants his opponent to appear weaker than he; he wants to control his destiny.
Take a moment to define what your natural instincts are toward your own opponents. Do you try to outwit or outlast your opponents? Do you run away? Do you charge toward conflicts? Do you ask for help or look for someone to blame?
No matter what our offensive, defensive, or self-protective mechanisms are, how do we overcome our opponents? How do we gain the victory over those who seek to dim our light or knock our emotional block off? The following are some life lessons I’ve learned from the many opponents I’ve faced along the way.
**Know who you are! Take stock of your strengths, your weaknesses, your talents, and what character traits that most define you. You must know who you are and you must know your value in order to defeat your opponent.
**Know who your opponent is. Define who, exactly, your opponent is. Is it who they are as a person or is it what they represent that makes them your opponent? Do they bring out a fear in you? Do they represent an unfulfilled childhood need? Realizing the root cause of who your opponent really is will go a long way in defeating their tactics.
**Create Success. Whoever your ‘bogey’ man or woman is; whatever your internal opponent is; it’s essential that you create small successes on your way to more challenging opponents. Equip yourself with the proper tools for your mental and emotional toolbox and, as a result, sling your own internal strength and self-confidence toward your opponents.
Focus on the position you occupy. Thus far, we have looked at ways to overcome our opponents. However, in the end, it is the position we occupy that will bring success. Defeating our opponents does no good if it leaves us in a worse state than before. The ultimate goal is to improve our position. Our opponents will fall by the wayside, especially in our minds. The strength they once held over us will dissipate when our position becomes one of internal resolve and power.
I’d love to hear from you if you have developed your own set of tools for defeating your internal and external opponents. We can all benefit from the life wisdom we’ve gathered if we use that wisdom to help each other improve our position, uncover, and discover our most powerful weapon of all – us!
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